Back again!!

hmm its been more than a year since i last posted something here, hehe its because i have been busy with work and i forgot my password here heheheh (stupid i know).. well lets get things going, im not going to post movie reviews now cause its kinda late and it takes lots of time to organize the photos of the movie, and this is just a test post, like warming up hehehe..

one of my student friend made a blog so i said "why not start making blogs again".. she already went back to Japan thats why i am missing her so much hehe.. she is really cute, sweet and funny..

Hard Gay!! Whooo!!

Razor Ramon HG (occasionally Laser Ramon HG) is the performing name of Masaki Sumitani, a Japanese comedian and tarento (“talent”). His act gained national attention and popularity when featured on the "Bakushō Mondai no Bakuten!" (Daibakuten) Saturday variety show on TBS Television in Japan, in 2005.



Razor Ramon HG first debuted in 1997, however, as a wrestler under the same name. He had met fellow comic and wrestler Izubuchi Makoto and started a comedy duo based on it. Their stunts got tons of praise however their comedy did not. So in 2001, Razor Ramon HG went on to join Yoshimoto Kogyo, one of Japan's biggest comedy troupes. When talking with fellow troupe member Kobayashi Kendo, the idea came up that he should play a militant homosexual. As Kobayashi put it "he made a perfect hardcore gay". Razor Ramon went with the idea and decided that "Livin La Vida Loca" by Ricky Martin would be his theme song.

This militant homosexual persona has become very popular in Japan. Lots of schoolgirls love him and Razor Ramon often appears on the show Bakuten, a variety show on TBS. Aside from the La Vida Loca theme song Razor Ramon is most famous for his hip gyrations and shouting "Whoooo!" or "Haado Gei" (Hard Gay or seen cleverly as The Art of Hard Gay". On the show Razor Ramon had his own little segment where he went around Tokyo trying to help people. This sort of personality on Bakuten (which is shown during "family hour") has a mixed reaction though. A lot of people like him and some people absolutely hate him.

This can clearly be seen as Razor Ramon was recently given the award for "Most Topical Figure" in Japan. However its clearly seen most parents aren't thrilled with his acts when they protested about his hip gyrations. However Razor Ramon simply ripped up their complaints claiming he gave "dreams to children". Despite all of this, even his persona, the man behind the persona is actually well mannered and quiet. When not portraying Razor Ramon Hard Gay he simply lives at his apartment in Nishinari-ku, Osaka. He also seems well aware that while people love his persona now and it pays his bills, his persona will not last forever and he will move on to other acts.

In the meantime, Razor Ramon has a very small music career (mostly tied to his persona) and continues to work in Yoshimoto Kogyo. He also continues to make apparences in his Village People like get up and even wrestles still. Recently he has started to work with his friend Izubuchi Makoto again and even has him going by the name "Razor Ramon RG" now.

A Millionaire's First Love

From Kim Tae Kyun, the director of Volcano High comes an amusing fish-out-of-water romance starring Hyun Bin from My Lovely Sam Soon and Lee Yeon Hee.

Jae Kyung is a spoilt rich kid and a bit of a slacker. He is in his senior year at high school, but rarely bothers showing up to class. It's not that he has no desire for success, it's just that he knows he doesn't have to study hard in order to get it. On his nineteenth birthday he will become a millionaire, thanks to his late grandfather's inheritance. But, the day before the big pay out, Jae Kyung's family lawyer discovers a hidden clause in the contract. Jae Kyung can only inherit his fortune if he graduates from Boram High School. Where? Exactly!

Boram is in a remote part of the Korean countryside, miles from Jae Kyung's cushy little existence. The pampered city boy has no choice but to up-sticks and move to this small rural community - where his credit card isn't accepted anywhere and he can't even drive his sports car! But, amongst all the country bumpkins and backward yokels, Jae Kyung meets Eun Hwan (Lee Yeon Hee) in whom he sees something different, something special, something which might possibly inspire him to change his selfish, arrogant ways and become a better person.

If you've ever been in love, this movie will tug at your heart! One of the saddest movie I've ever seen. It is like "A Walk to Remember". It was too cliche and predictable. I mean Rich dude moves out into the country, falls inlove with a regular girl, he hides it with his arrogance, He finds out her secret, goes "I'm sorry I love you" on ya. What I really liked about the movie was the female actress. She was hot! Super hot! Hehehehe!!

If you guys like romantic movies I would suggest that you watch this movie. This movie is worth every penny, but if you don't like sad endings i suggest that you rent or just borrow it from a friend hehehe..

Tears

After spending five months in Garibong-dong, a district in Seoul, Director Lim Sang-Soo's Tears was a movie based on his recollection of those five months. Han, a young runaway, and Chang, an over-the-top teen, are close friends. Chang is a foulmouthed, womanizer while Han is a quiet and humble virgin. As they venture into the streets of Garibong-dong and jump from apartment to apartment, they encounter a young hooker, Lan, and Seri, a paint-sniffing young woman who finds comfort in the hands of Han. And this forms the unlikely group of teenagers facing the hardships of street life.

What more can I say? What else is there to say after that? I mean come on! Hookers, drugs, runaways-sounds like another KIDS ripoff. Heh. Well, here's the thing. The movie was shot totally in Digital Video format and it looks as if the movie itself was a documentary on young teenagers and their lives in these unforgiving streets. Tears is a gritty and shocking tale of the spirit of untamed youth and the wildness that ensues.

Taking cues from his experience in a homeless-ridden district in Seoul, Lim Sang-Soo set out to display the graphic nature of his work. While filming on DV mainly to conserve cost, the movie actually benefits from the look and feel. The characters and their relationships come to life as each scene grows more and more distinct in flavor. From the beginning, we have Han and Chang at a little get together in a café with friends . . . and hookers! At that moment, I knew I was watching one of those documentary-type films. And when Chang begins to use the hookers as punching bags and sexual objects, hell, that just solidified my case.

I commend the director for his rawness in Tears. He takes us into a world where confusion and despair are of the ordinary and pain is just the icing on the cake. There are scenes where we see women being punched in the face and slammed on the ground. Other scenes where we see how desperate they are to leave their world behind by inhaling paint fumes because they probably can't afford a decent form of illegal drug to abuse. It's shocking, yet melancholic the way these teens are depicted on screen. The sex scenes, yes the sex scenes, are even worse. The horrible past experiences of one of the girls creep up on her as she can't perform in bed even if she's in the mood. And the other girl comes to terms with her escort service occupation as she's confronted by her own father. This is just some of the many truths that'll be unveiled to the viewers as they watch the movie.

What moves this movie in the forward direction is of course its unknown cast. Believable is an understatement as we see these teens trudge down the mean streets. Chang is a bleached blonde young man with a taste for sexual intercourse and beer. His life is all about living off his sexual partners' apartment and cash. Han, the runaway, is probably the staple point of the film. He's ordinary in many ways and seems to be the conflict in the story. Here is a young man with the rest of his life ahead of him, yet he wants to escape that and follow a crowd that may or may not be alive the next day. Lan is a prostitute with a thing for braids. She loves Chang and is solely committed to making him happy even though she knows of his cheating ways. Her life will never reach further than her one room apartment. And lastly, the most troubled of the group is Seri, an attractive young lady who rides like the wind on her motorcycle. She finds the open arms of Han and sees that he is everything she needs to move on in her life. But she must first forget about being raped by a family member while she was younger because it's troubling her sexual performance with Han. And she must persevere and defeat her paint-sniffing ways before actually moving on. These four characters make up the stereotypical teens from the street. And it remains the stronghold of this film.

As much as the characters were believable enough, the ending is left to be desired. The director builds up this growing relationship among the four and then suddenly jerks it into another direction. It left a very foul taste in my mouth and it wasn't the Twix cookie bars I was eating. Tears take us through a candid look at sex, drugs, and . . . sniffing. If it's a documentary-type movie that's gritty and raw you're looking for or if you're looking for some topless nude shots, then Tears is your choice. Other than that, no real justifiable reason to watch or get it.

Kirei : The Terror of Beauty

Yoko Noguchi is a beautiful and successful plastic surgeon with a very peculiar patient- a psychologically unbalanced woman named Yoshie. Yoshie begs Yoko to perform surgery on her when all other doctors refuse. Yoshie behaves like a very obvious loony, but she is loaded with money (although does not appear to be rich) which she lavishly pours on Yoko. Yoko ultimately accepts the challenge, but after the operation realizes that it was only the beginning: after having her face corrected, Yoshio wants her belly and later her virginal vagina operated as well… Yoko succumbs to these demands as well, but making Yoshie beautiful is only the preparation for a very ugly ending…

If you are tired of J-horror being equated with ghostly female black-haired apparitions, THE TERROR OF BEAUTY offers a reminder of another popular staple of Japanese horror - the equivalent of hard R splatter in which the accent is put on body horror with strong surgical overtones, filled with moralizing about human mortality and hypocrisy. As this sub-genre is usually very low budget (unlike its more respectable, ghostly cousins), another element commonly found in it is plenty of sex and nudity.

Who would be better to provide this kind of entertainment than Katsuya Matsumura, whose fame lies mostly in the wonderfully, unbearably sicko/sleazy ALL NIGHT LONG series (five parts so far, but only the first three are available in the English speaking world). Beneath the veneer of crude direct to video exploitation the ALL NIGHT LONG flicks actually provided a genuine, original and surprisingly intelligent satire on modern Japan, especially the world of otakus, outcasts and youth gangs indulging in all kinds of depravity. THE TERROR OF BEAUTY would seem to provide an excellent opportunity for another inspired mixture of satire and sleaze, ideas and gore, sex and death, social concerns and opportunistic exploitation. Unfortunately, the end result is below the expectations that this author and these themes would seem to inspire.

THE TERROR OF BEAUTY suffers from a lame script which is too simple-minded and straightforward to provide enough food for either brain or… well, whatever organ the gore hounds have. By deciding to mystify Yoshie’s origin, including the incredible amounts of money at her disposal, the scriptwriters deprive the film of any real drama. The two main characters are sketched in broad strokes: a beautiful but greedy plastic surgeon and an ugly AND creepy disturbed woman. That is all you learn about them. Yoko’s boyfriend is not even a cipher- it seems that his sole function in the flick is for Yoko to have someone to talk to and thus speak up her thoughts to the audience.

Of course, coming to a film like this, character development may not be your first demand- but Matsumura, surprisingly, disappoints even in what he’s usually doing best. The nudity quota is relatively low (for his standards), the surgical tools are barely touched, the explicit operations are present in a couple of uninspired seconds and the gore scenes are limited to splashes of unconvincingly colored violet/red liquid. To be honest, there are a few queasy moments involving liposuction and at the very end, when the frail beauty, recently operated, starts unstitching. The common viewer has enough of unpleasantness to cover his/her eyes from, but more experienced splatter-fans, anxiously expecting to see what kind of aces Matsumura may have up his sleeves could be a bit disappointed.

THE TERROR OF BEAUTY is obviously a quickie whose no-budget makes the ALL NIGHT LONG series look like SCREAM. It’s limited to three different rooms and as many ‘characters’, so there’s not much production value to speak of; the camera is barely functional, but most of the scenes are over-lit and lacking in any kind of beauty. The score is sweet, quiet and barely noticeable while the make up effects are decent, though obviously cheap, and not nearly as prominent as you might expect from a film with a ‘surgical’ plot like this. All in all, this flick is watchable since it’s not too boring (but it’s not too exciting either!), so some viewers –you know who you are!- may want to rent it, but note that it is not a highly rewatchable film which would require a constant place in your collection.

Il Mare

"Il Mare" is the name of a seafront house where two lovers reside in at two different times. Sung-hyun in 1997 receives a strange letter one day, reminding him to be careful of the snowstorm in 1998. But it is posted in the year 1999. Time travels backward again when Eun-joo sends him a letter of request, asking him to look for her lost cassette recorder at the train station where Sung-hyun finally gets a glimpse of her.




Beautifully written and painstakingly charming, Il Mare is a romance movie that breathes life into a genre that has too many similar plots. I don't want to come off as a cold-hearted moron who thinks romantic movies are too cliched, please don't think of me as that? Simply put it this way, Il Mare is the kind of movie that leaves you utterly breathless. When you're done watching it, you just sit there and ponder on things you never knew you would think about. After the "fade to black," I lied there on my bed just watching the ending credits because I didn't want it to end. I'm sure all of you have felt this way either after watching My Sassy Girl or Fly Me To Polaris. I know these two movies are considered to be far and away instant classics in Asian Cinema, but Il Mare also has that sense of prestige that made the other two movies so lovable. And after watching this movie, I guarantee with all my heart and soul, you'll love this movie as much as I did.

The most noteworthy reason why this film is so magnificent is the subtleness in the plot. The whole story revolves around a very surreal seafront house that seems hidden and aloof from the crowded world. In all ways is this splendid little house a magical dream come true. There's a long, winding boardwalk to the front door and an exit that leads to the ocean. I can't say enough about how unbelievably pure and perfect this house becomes throughout the movie. When the time comes to actually "meet" our couple, you're already caught in the folds of bliss that has engulfed your imagination. And to think, the house itself is just a mere backdrop, or backbone if you will, to the couples' substantial relationship. When I say "relationship," I get a feeling of irony. The couple never really meet up in the movie, instead, they are entangled in a love letter type scheme that dips its wet feet into the world of sci-fi. The couple are writing letters to each other while living in the same world in two different times. Sung-hyun (Lee Jung Jae) is an aspiring architect who moves into his new home only to find a "welcome" letter from the previous owner. Eun-joo, played by the beautiful Jun Ji-hyun of My Sassy Girl, is the previous owner of Il Mare. She receives a letter from Sung-hyun that simply turns both their worlds upside down. It appears Eun-joo lives in the year 1999 and Sung-hyun in the year 1997.

As farfetched as the plot may seem, director Lee Hyun-seung never seems to disappoint. At first I felt this was going to be too difficult to understand because of the whole "wrinkle in time" idea. However, the story does not dwell upon that too long. The film doesn't want you to go to great depths to understand the time barrier between the couple. What it does want you to come to terms with, however, is the idea that these two people are destined lovers that may or may not ever meet each other because of fate's weird obstacle course. And when you understand that, then you'll see how melancholic this cinematic exposure is. We see two people, two years apart from meeting one another, trying desperately to connect in other ways than writing. There are scenes where they seem to go on a date, but in reality, they are there alone only keeping the other in mind and spirit. I commend the beautiful arrangement, almost bouquet-like, of the director during these sequences. Viewers will begin to understand the true test of love and how it will conquer all. It was one of the most tantalizing experiences my eyes will ever know. It was almost as beautiful as Jingle Ma's superior work in Fly Me To Polaris. It was pure visual splendor and it will undoubtedly touch your heart in more ways than one.

I don't have to say anything about the performances of the two actors. But here's something that will sum it all up-Simply Amazing. The imaginative nature, the subtleness of the story, and the surreal love story between the characters is more than enough to make most of you buy this movie. Take into consideration the magical aura the film is manifested on and you got yourself a movie worth watching. In the past few months, thanks to Mr. Kwang and Korean writers, I've become a true-blue Korean movie lover. With entertaining movies like Il Mare, My Sassy Girl, and Guns and Talks under their belt, I hope we viewers are treated more to these soul-touching eye-candies. Believe me, Il Mare is another instant classic you'll want to experience at least once in your lifetime. And you'll probably say the same thing about the universal language of "love."

Battle Royale

Some time in the new millennium Japan falls into economical decay, mass unemployment reigns in the country. With no clear future available, the student no longer respect school, violence increases due to riots and many students drop out of school. With the chaotic situation the government enacts the Battle Royale act, which consists of selected one of the poorest performing classes and sending off to an island where they must fight for survival and only one student can leave alive. The students have 3 days to complete the game or everyone dies due to explosive devices on their necks, they are given random weapons and the only rules to follow is avoid the danger zone and don't cause any trouble or the army will kill them. Mistrust, fear and hate run rampant and chaos spread among the students and they soon give in to the fight for survival.

The story starts off on an immoral edge, simple to follow and keeps surprises to a minimum and most importantly gives you time to better understand the characters. Overall this is a very entertaining experience and very interesting to follow, there is only a slight detail slight hole in the story near the end but we wont mention any spoilers. The movie is taken from a manga, it is most probably that the producer cut out certain things from the movie version but in general the story holds together very well and there aren't any real slow moments.

The fact that the cast that is about to kill each other are all teenagers is a shocking factor. The ways the kids kill each other can be pretty brutal from a knife to an uzi or a crossbow, all for the fight of survival. This is the real reason for the controversy around the movie is that fact that kids killing kids, in North America with all the school shootings this is an especially touchy subject. If this movie was the fight of survival between adults instead, we don't think it would have generated as movie hype. There are about 30 students thrown onto the island but the story focuses mostly 5 or 6 students and we follow their fight for survival from start to finish. The acting is great and their emotions are really visible, the context is easily understandable, what if you were stuck there and you have to kill classmates and friends alike for your own survival. As for Kitano he still remains the king, each of his appearances on screen are striking and memorable.

It is true that violence has an important place in BR but to say that the violence is shocking and hard to watch is totally false. There is nothing new or extreme when it comes to violence in BR, what is shocking about the violence is who is doing it and to who. Having innocent students forced into a situation where they must kill each other is the troubling part of the movie. Fans of violence should enjoy this movie if you don't expect splattering guts every 5 minutes else you might be really disappointed.

Violence might have a strong place in this movie but there is one thing to know it is far from being senseless violence as most people have said. Not everyone may perceive this movie in this fashion but we find there are several strong messages in the movie, certain reflections of society or human nature, this is a movie with a point to it. This movie makes brutal and dark references of the incomprehensible moments of everyday life such as fear, shyness, deception, love, jealousy, humiliation and helplessness. In this extreme situation the characters have a way out from these trivial matters and make the better of themselves and maybe become or say what they really always wanted to or to come face to face with an enemy they must fight or be killed.

In conclusion Battle Royale has far more to offer than a orgy of blood and senseless violence as some would say. Some may not like this movie while others will completely adore it but one thing is certain this is a movie that will not be forgotten. If you like Japanese cinema which is not scared of showing true violence with the emotions that go along with it, then you will probably enjoy this one. If you are looking for a movie with shocking action you can give BR a chance, you might be pleasantly surprised and for sure entertained. Oh! and just for Kitano`s fans, this movie is worth it.